The Rise of a Militaristic Carthage?

Most know Carthage as a mercantile-based nation with little expertise in mustering standing armies, instead using client state levies and mercenaries to field a mediocre to sometimes a decent fighting force. Because of the lack of a proper military, Carthaginian Generals were usually left to fend for themselves and received very little support from the government. If the general failed, imminent crucifixion awaited him. But what if this was not the case? What if instead of inheriting the mercantile culture of its Phoenician forefather, Carthage comes into conflict with the Greeks much more often. Berber tribes are much more hostile to a Punic presence in Africa. My idea is to create a TL where Carthage instead is forced to become militant due to the hostile nature of its Berber neighbors and constant competition with the Greeks for colonies. Any thoughts?
 
Would their manpower pool be as limited as OTL's? Because that seems like a serious problem.

Perhaps a critical one: the Roman system potentially provided huge human resources allowing it to keep fighting even with the mediocre generals in charge. OTOH, OTL Carthage was seemingly in a desperate need of the very talented military leaders to survive.

Wouldn't this "militaristic Carthage" require a substantial cultural change with a switch from a merchant to militaristic mentality and the relevant changes in all society from top to bottom? It would be rather difficult to maintain both at the same time without hurting the source of prosperity (aka, trade). Unless, of course, there is something like an earlier version of the Venetian Republic with a well-funded standing mercenary army (still, not sure if this is enough against an opponent like Rome). Another historic analogy, Novgorodian Republic, was reasonably easily defeated by the militaristic neighbor, Muscovite State.
 
Perhaps a critical one: the Roman system potentially provided huge human resources allowing it to keep fighting even with the mediocre generals in charge. OTOH, OTL Carthage was seemingly in a desperate need of the very talented military leaders to survive.

Wouldn't this "militaristic Carthage" require a substantial cultural change with a switch from a merchant to militaristic mentality and the relevant changes in all society from top to bottom? It would be rather difficult to maintain both at the same time without hurting the source of prosperity (aka, trade). Unless, of course, there is something like an earlier version of the Venetian Republic with a well-funded standing mercenary army (still, not sure if this is enough against an opponent like Rome). Another historic analogy, Novgorodian Republic, was reasonably easily defeated by the militaristic neighbor, Muscovite State.

My idea is that with constant incursions with Berbers and Greeks will expand the Carthaginian spheres on influence, and instead of establishing minor colonies here and there and have the ethnically Punic population limited to Africa, Carthage does its best to "Punicize" the area and further bolster their manpower.

Also, keep in mind they will still keep certain aspects of Phoenician culture, such as still being sea faring people, except this time the navy is used more and more of a militant force rather than to keep order on Carthage's trade routes.
 
Another thing is that this POD takes place at the very founding of Carthage and the Phoenician colonists are hit with a stark realization: a peaceful trading empire cannot remain afloat here.
 
My idea is that with constant incursions with Berbers and Greeks will expand the Carthaginian spheres on influence, and instead of establishing minor colonies here and there and have the ethnically Punic population limited to Africa, Carthage does its best to "Punicize" the area and further bolster their manpower.

Also, keep in mind they will still keep certain aspects of Phoenician culture, such as still being sea faring people, except this time the navy is used more and more of a militant force rather than to keep order on Carthage's trade routes.

That's fine but to get from here to a militarized state like the Roman Republic you need more. Just having a more ethnically uniform North Africa would not make its population into the trained soldiers. You need something like the Roman mandatory military service with government consistently being in the hands of the "militaristic class" and not the merchants.
 
Most know Carthage as a mercantile-based nation with little expertise in mustering standing armies, instead using client state levies and mercenaries to field a mediocre to sometimes a decent fighting force. Because of the lack of a proper military, Carthaginian Generals were usually left to fend for themselves and received very little support from the government. If the general failed, imminent crucifixion awaited him. But what if this was not the case? What if instead of inheriting the mercantile culture of its Phoenician forefather, Carthage comes into conflict with the Greeks much more often. Berber tribes are much more hostile to a Punic presence in Africa. My idea is to create a TL where Carthage instead is forced to become militant due to the hostile nature of its Berber neighbors and constant competition with the Greeks for colonies. Any thoughts?

There's some recent scholarship that challenges this traditional view of Carthage. Some studies have shown that, while clearly not as much a generally militaristic society as Rome or some Hellenic cities (Sparta comes to mind, though that picture has also been the target of some deserved deeper scrutiny) Carthage did not rely solely on mercenaries and allied auxiliaries, but had some citizen army like other city-states of Antiquity. It has also been suggested that the "mercenaries" quoted in some sources were actually more akin to a standing army, at least in part (clearly at least part of them was not Carthaginian).
Carthage was by no means a peaceful mercantile city-state; they did have an imperialistic policy, bullied their neighbours often enough, and conquered on land and across the sea if they could and profited. It also seems that various strata of Carthaginian society benefited from conquest and expansion (alongside trade, not necessarily in opposition to it) and were onboard with that.
Of course, their society was not imbued with the all-pervading centrality of warfare in the way we often see in Greece and parts of Italy in the same period, either organizationally or ideologically (from what we know). So, by the standards of the Hellenes and Romans who handed down Carthaginian history to us (with a largely hostile POV, being their enemies), perhaps they were indeed tree-hugging peaceniks... But their perspective was the one of extremely militaristic society (in outlook if not in actual practice). Certainly Carthage was able to put a serious, long standing military challenge to many Hellenic powers and to the Romans alike, and did so consistently and repeatedly, even if not successfully in the end.
Ofc, you still can make them more militaristic. Does not guarantee that they stand up to Rome (hard to beat that). It is problematic to maintain the naval focus in this way, however: a large citizen army is a thing, but then you more or less need a large pool of yeomen to recruit it from; a citizen navy was frigging expensive in Antiquity, let alone its political implications; Athens did that, but it went hand in hand with radical democracy, not something the mercantile elites are going to be too fond of.
 
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The big problem that Carthage faced was manpower, not its military, effectively half a million people took on 5 million.
 
The big problem that Carthage faced was manpower, not its military, effectively half a million people took on 5 million.
Where exactly do these numbers come from? Carthage ruled over a wide swath of some of the most productive farmland in the world, from Lepcis in Tripolitania to the Tunisian Sahel to the cities on the Algerian coast. That's not even counting their extensive holdings in Spain, from which they repeatedly raised huge armies.

There really isn't a whole lot to support the idea that Carthage faced a crippling manpower shortage; when you go through and tally up the total size of Carthaginian forces throughout the Second Punic War, they're usually equal if not greater than the Romans. Certainly, the Carthaginian empire displayed inestimably greater resilience fighting through a dozen major defeats than Macedon, Egypt, or the Seleukids, who each collapsed after one or two battles. The problem was that Carthage's prime recruiting grounds in Spain were carved away before those of the Romans in Italy, and you can chalk this up in large part to Hasdrubal Barca and Hasdrubal son of Ghisco just repeatedly losing battles, or perhaps to Hannibal's strategic overreach, in which he attempted to build the post-war order (a client Italian league, possession of Sicily and Sardinia) before the war was won, thus missing the chance to take the tide of fortune at the flood.
 
Where exactly do these numbers come from? Carthage ruled over a wide swath of some of the most productive farmland in the world, from Lepcis in Tripolitania to the Tunisian Sahel to the cities on the Algerian coast. That's not even counting their extensive holdings in Spain, from which they repeatedly raised huge armies..

Citizens, unlike Rome Carthage never turned its population under its control into citizens.
 
I appreciate all of your thoughts and criticism, I will begin the TL shortly. Here is the basic overview of it so far:

-Carthage is challenged much more often in their early years by native Berbers and constant competition with Greek colonists, forcing them into a culture shift to keep the city afloat.
-Military success of Carthage attracts more and more Phoenician settlers
-Manpower will still be an issue early on, but with aggressive and expansive foreign policies Carthage will do its best to assimilate and or exterminate local populaces and replace them with Punic settlers. Still, manpower will prevent a lot of Carthaginian expansion early on.
-With militarization, Carthage has a much more organized high command: Generals no longer have the threat of crucifixion over them and are trained much more efficiently by veterans. The state also pitches in and supplies them with manpower and supplies, lowering the needs of mercenaries to bolster the ranks.
-Honor guards and elite units such as the Sacred band are extended heavily to the nobles of Carthage.
 
Somehow this sounds as if they had to change their complete world-view. Just like Willy 2 tried to make Germany suddenly a great seapower (we all know how successful that was), or Britain deciding (maybe after inheriting Hannover) to expand on the continent, for which they'd obviously need a huge land army.
 
Would they be a more landbass empire or due they keep there trading side too?

In general, being in alot of wars with the goal of securing population and territory isent good for bussiness. The military sucks out administrative and leadership talents for managing soldiers and supplies rather than clients and commodities,the generals scoop up a greater share of political power thus insuring state policy is tuned more to the advantage of the army than the merchantile class, taxes both in coin and kind are an added burdan on the economy, and extended conflict and population displacement disrupts supply chains. There'd still be some training,of course, but I can't see how it'd be remotely as predominant as IOTL.
 
Citizens, unlike Rome Carthage never turned its population under its control into citizens.
Roman citizens were a relatively small minority in Italy too, with perhaps a fifth of the five million in Roman Italy being part of the Roman citizen class. If you interpret Strabo's figure of 700,000 people in the city as the total citizen body in Carthage and the surrounding area, this could mean Carthage had rough parity in terms of citizen bodies. Moreover, Carthage still had their massive font of military manpower in Spain and no shortage of Libyans.
 
In general, being in alot of wars with the goal of securing population and territory isent good for bussiness. The military sucks out administrative and leadership talents for managing soldiers and supplies rather than clients and commodities,the generals scoop up a greater share of political power thus insuring state policy is tuned more to the advantage of the army than the merchantile class, taxes both in coin and kind are an added burdan on the economy, and extended conflict and population displacement disrupts supply chains. There'd still be some training,of course, but I can't see how it'd be remotely as predominant as IOTL.
Lots of people start with the idea that Carthage was a city of merchants, and then extrapolate all kinds of conclusions about what this means without basing them in the evidence. Carthage was almost constantly at war, and war had a direct effect on the city's trading. Archaeologists theorize based on amphorae finds that Carthage began a long period of expansionism to conquer agricultural land in the Tunisian sahel, Sicily, and Sardinia to feed growing demands for cereal grains in the eastern Mediterranean, especially Athens.
-With militarization, Carthage has a much more organized high command: Generals no longer have the threat of crucifixion over them
This is probably a mistake. Scholars theorize the crucifixion of defeated generals was a big part of the reason Carthage was able to last so long as it did in the wars with Rome; the state was able to defray responsibility for defeat from Carthage itself and nail (heh) it to a single aristocrat. The French Republic actually owed a measure of its military success to the guillotine of Damocles hanging over their generals' heads. The two antique Republics in the west, Rome and Carthage, successfully created narratives that allowed the state to survive devastating defeats with their legitimacy intact; you can't remove crucifixion in Carthage without something to replace it.
 
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Roman citizens were a relatively small minority in Italy too, with perhaps a fifth of the five million in Roman Italy being part of the Roman citizen class. If you interpret Strabo's figure of 700,000 people in the city as the total citizen body in Carthage and the surrounding area, this could mean Carthage had rough parity in terms of citizen bodies. Moreover, Carthage still had their massive font of military manpower in Spain and no shortage of Libyans.

But also, by the time of the 2nd Punic war a large proportion of Rome’s armed forces were comprised of the auxiliary velites levied from the various Italian allies, potentially giving Rome access to nearly double their apparent military manpower
 
But also, by the time of the 2nd Punic war a large proportion of Rome’s armed forces were comprised of the auxiliary velites levied from the various Italian allies, potentially giving Rome access to nearly double their apparent military manpower
Well duh. The point the other posting was making was about citizen manpower, not subjects; Carthage obviously had parity in subject manpower, since they matched Roman armies through most of the war; my point is that the Carthaginian citizenry was similarly numerous to the Roman 'core' as well.
 
Well duh. The point the other posting was making was about citizen manpower, not subjects; Carthage obviously had parity in subject manpower, since they matched Roman armies through most of the war; my point is that the Carthaginian citizenry was similarly numerous to the Roman 'core' as well.
Well, while Carthage actually DID match the Romans many times on the field, sources pretty clearly state that in sheer numbers, Rome had the edge, by far. One could argue, regarding the Second Punic War, that the individual tactical ability of Hannibal offset the undeniable Roman advantage in number may times. I don't think it was the only factor (most Carthaginian soldiers were full time troops - "mercenaries" -, which was not really yet the case for the Roman counterparts, mostly; this means the possibility of better training on the Carthaginian side) but certainly Hannibal was an exceptionally gifted commander.
 
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